


Sunshine

by quadrotriticale



Category: Marvel, X-Men (Alternate Timeline Movies), X-Men - All Media Types
Genre: (almost anyway), Depression, M/M, Not Canon Compliant, POV Alex Summers, POV Second Person, Self-Harm, Suicidal Thoughts, Suicide Attempt, alex is poly armando and hank r his 2 bfs, it's not actually mentioned but i meant to imply it, tHANK U, ya boy alex is having such a shit time
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-03
Updated: 2018-07-03
Packaged: 2019-06-04 21:26:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 941
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15155972
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/quadrotriticale/pseuds/quadrotriticale
Summary: “What’re you doing up here, Alex?” Hank asks carefully, but you know he knows why you’re here.“You know,” you tell him, too tired to be angry, too exhausted to sound bitter.





	Sunshine

**Author's Note:**

> good evening im mass posting self indulgent fics that ive never posted anywhere and have only shown to one live human person who isnt myself  
> things u need to know abt my own mental rewrite of the xmcu:  
> 1) scott is alexs adopted babey brother  
> 2) scotts parents are shit (i am so sorry corsair ily)  
> 3) alex is gay and he has 2 whole bfs  
> 4) depending on my Mood sometimes alex doesnt come back to the school till ~xma and sometimes he takes scott and runs either in his 20s or post vietnam  
> 5) i refuse to accept that darwin is killable in any situation ever in my life thank you

You’re sort of perched on the edge of the roof, staring down at the ground three stories below. This fucking mansion is huge, you don't know why any one person would ever need this much space. You’re dizzy, the height making you a little bit woozy, but you’re almost committed to this. You’re pretty sure you want to do it; you want to jump, you want to stop, you’re tired and Scott has people who’ll take care of him if you aren’t here, he’ll be okay, Hank will be okay, no one else would miss you. 

Your arms are still bleeding. You let your legs dangle off the edge, turn your eyes up to the sky. At least it’s nice out. At least you won’t die in the rain, you’re pretty sure that would just be depressing. You watch the clouds for a while, mull things over in your head. Depression pulls at your shoulders, at your ankles, at your wrists. Your mind is muddy, you can’t steer yourself in any direction that won’t leave you dead on the grass below so you don’t really even try. It’s been like this for days. 

(For weeks, for months, for years, since as long as your pockmarked memory will let you remember.)

You don’t hear the roof door open, and you don’t hear footsteps, and you almost don’t hear someone cautiously settle down beside you, legs crossed, a little further back from the ledge than you’ve let yourself be. 

“What’re you doing up here, Alex?” Hank asks carefully, but you know he knows why you’re here. 

“You know,” you tell him, too tired to be angry, too exhausted to sound bitter. 

He’s quiet for a minute, like he’s thinking. You don’t look at him, cast your eyes down again. You scratch your arm, fingers pull away bloody. You don’t bother wiping them on anything. Hank sighs quietly behind you. 

“I do,” he replies, “but you should really come back down, let me fix your arms.”

You glance at him now, briefly. “No, I really don’t think I should.”

“...If you won’t come for me, would you come for Scott? What is he going to do if you aren’t here?” He asks. You’ve ran through this a million and one times already, this isn’t the first time he’s tried to talk you down. You want it to be the last, though. 

“He’ll be fine. He’s a baby, he won’t remember this in a few years anyway. Someone will take care of him, Charles wouldn’t send him back to his parents and neither would you. He’ll be fine, I’m not worried,” you respond, voice flat. You don’t want to play this game today. 

Hank is quiet for some time, like he’s thinking, like he’s trying to figure out how to get you down since you seem so hellbent on killing yourself. 

“You know,” he starts, “I’ve tracked Darwin down.” 

You falter. Hank is too good at getting you out of things you try to commit to. “...Armando?”

“I can call him, see if I can get him to come back, but you have to come down.”

You’ve sort of convinced yourself he was dead even though you know from experience that that isn’t exactly possible, since he disappeared after Cuba and hadn't made any attempt to contact you that you knew of. Of course, you had too- you hadn’t made any efforts to keep in contact with anyone from the team, hadn’t bothered to even try to keep updated on what they were doing since you were so goddamn sure you were going to be dead before you were (twelve, thirteen, fifteen, seventeen, eighteen, nineteen) twenty. 

But here you are, twenty, sitting on the roof of an unreasonably large mansion.

You draw your legs back in, push yourself back from the edge, and it feels like everything hits you at once, like you’re standing in front of a bus, or a train, or a car, like the wind’s been knocked out of you. You shake, you cry in front of him, cry on him, bleed on his coat. You let him hold onto you, let him talk to you quietly until the tears stop coming and you stop shaking and everything, everything seems to settle down. The sun is still out, the sky is still blue, and you’re still sitting on the roof of an impractically large mansion with your boyfriend. It’s 1965, your name is Alex Summers, and you’re alive. You’re 20, and you’re alive. 

Hank takes you downstairs, takes you to his lab, and you let him fix you up. You don’t really talk, although you do thank him when he’s finished, and you sleep that night with your baby brother on your chest, bandages tight and careful and clean. 

Darwin arrives three days later with a suitcase and the warmest smile you think you’ve ever seen. You hug him first, chatter at him for hours while he wanders around and greets everyone. He missed you, you find out. When you get him to yourself, you kiss him hard against the door in your room and he asks you about your arms and you tell him it’s okay, something happened but you’re alive, you’re alive, you’re alive. And when he presses you for information, you tell him, and he holds your face in his hands and tells you he loves you, so much, he’s so proud of you, and you break down crying again. 

Later you introduce him to Scott, catch him up on everything, and it isn’t okay, but it’s better.

You’re loved. You’re alive. Sometimes you just need to be reminded.


End file.
